


possibilities

by eutrash (AreteNike)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Realities, F/F, Memories, as with everything i write ya gotta read between the lines a bit..., vld lunar ladies exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-05 18:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12195198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreteNike/pseuds/eutrash
Summary: When a blast from Lotor's ship leaves Allura unharmed but seriously out of sorts, Pidge is determined to find out why.





	possibilities

**Author's Note:**

> my vld lunar ladies tumblr exchange gift for missnebulaeyes! i uh. played a little fast and loose with the prompt lmao.

_The problem,_ Pidge thinks, as she paces outside Allura's room, _is that we never have enough information._

Some things she does know: the blue lion was struck in battle. The odd blue beam came from Lotor's ship—the one from the meteor. Allura kept fighting, but it was strained, her words were clipped and sparse, and when afterward she stumbled out of her lion all she would say was "I remember."

What Pidge doesn't know is _why._

"I've never seen anything like this," Coran admits as she paces. "She's not injured—not physically, anyway. But it’s like something got into her _mind_..."

"And you can't get it out," Pidge finishes. "Did she say anything else to you?"

"I'm afraid not. She's resting now; if you want to question her, do it in the morning," he adds, gentle but firm.

So Pidge heads down to the hangar to look at the battle logs, from her lion and the others, just in case. Just to see if someone picked up _something_ about the blast.

But she only finds what she knew already. And since it came from Lotor's meteor ship, it could have been anything—even some kind of technology that never existed before.

She has to be missing something. There has to be more information _somewhere._

She keeps pouring over the logs long after everyone else is asleep until Shiro—the other resident insomniac—shoos her off to bed. She passes out the moment her head heads hits her pillow, but it’s not a peaceful sleep; the words _I remember_ plague her dreams. They all know what happened to Altea and how that came to pass—she _doesn’t_ know what Allura’s remembering but she doubts it’s anything good.

Waking up is almost a relief, except that those thoughts don’t really go away in the (figurative) light of day.

She's a little early for breakfast, which is unusual, but neither Hunk nor Shiro comment on it when she wanders into the kitchen in search of food. Nor do they comment when she picks at her food instead of devouring it at top speed. Normally she'd be rushing off to get some work done on her latest project (well, normally she'd still be asleep). But she knows perfectly well there's nothing in those logs. Until Allura is awake, there's nothing else to do.

So it's a relief when Coran comes in; doubly so when he catches her eye and nods unsubtly towards the door.

She leaves her barely-disturbed breakfast behind and follows him out of the kitchen, feeling Hunk and Shiro's quiet eyes upon her. Coran doesn't speak until they're well down the hall.

"She's... awake, now," he says, which is not at all a heartening start to the conversation. "I'm afraid there's not much change from last night, though. But she did ask for you!"

Pidge almost trips over her own feet. "She did?"

"She did! She didn't say why. Perhaps she thinks you can help her."

"I hope so," Pidge says. "I'm gonna try."

"I'm glad to hear it," Coran says gently, and then he lets her into Allura's room.

Allura is sitting in bed, staring blankly at the wall. After a moment in which Pidge stands awkwardly at the door, her gaze shifts languidly, meeting Pidge's without any sort of conviction or recognition.

"Princess?" Pidge tries. "...Allura?"

Allura's gaze sharpens just slightly. "Pidge..."

"You, um..." Pidge fidgets, put off and not least by the pace of the conversation. Allura slows for no one. "You called for me?"

"...Yes," Allura says and looks away. "I remember."

"What do you remember?" Pidge asks.

Allura doesn't respond. Pidge grits her teeth, frustrated, and walks up to the bed.

"Allura, what do you remember?"

Allura doesn't respond or even make any indication that she's heard. Her hand is slowly curling and uncurling against her blanket.

"Allura," Pidge tries again. "Princess. _Allura_."

Still no response.

" _Allura_." Pidge grabs Allura's face and turns it towards her to force her to meet her eyes, half-climbing onto the bed to reach. " _What do you remember?_ "

"This," Allura blurts, surprising them both. "I mean. Not this. Something very like."

Not full sentences, but they're phrases other than "I remember," so Pidge'll take it.

"What do you mean?" she presses.

"Something like this," Allura repeats. "I... it happened?"

Pidge frowns, Allura's face still between her hands. "I'm pretty sure we haven't done anything like this before." She's pretty sure Coran would object to manhandling the Princess like this, for one thing.

"Not... here," Allura says, closing her eyes.

Something like something they’ve done, but haven’t done, somewhere else? So her newfound memories are false? But where could they come from? The druids? Hunk did theorize it was possible they could create false memories. But this can’t be a particularly _upsetting_ memory because Allura is still sitting relatively peacefully between her hands, not throwing her off like Shiro does in the middle of an episode, so _why—_

Then it clicks.

"Alternate realities?" she guesses. "You're remembering what's happened in alternate realities?"

"That must be it," Allura whispers as if to herself.

That’s about as good of a confirmation as she’ll get, Pidge supposes. She sits back on her heels, pulling herself fully onto the bed, and lowers her hands. Allura's snap up to grip her forearms, though.

"Pidge," she says, but nothing more.

"Allura," Pidge says cautiously.

"Pidge."

"Allura."

"Pidge."

"Okay, uh. Yeah, that's me." Come to think of it, if her head is full of memories from theoretically infinite realities, it's no wonder she's so... out of it. "We're gonna fix this, okay? We'll find a way to undo it."

"No!" Allura's eyes snap to hers, and her grip tightens. "No, I can help."

"Can you," Pidge says flatly. Yes, theoretically, information from alternate realities could guide them to make the right decisions here, but it’s not worth it if it makes Allura… like this.

"Yes."

"Tell me about a memory, then. Just one. Coherently, beginning to end."

Allura's brow furrows. She pouts a little, as if put out by the challenge, but it quickly turns to frustration as she remains silent. Pidge sighs.

"Can you remember _anything_ specific?"

Allura frowns again, and glances down at Pidge's hands, still held in front of her. She lifts them to her face again.

"You," she says.

Pidge swallows. "Um. Thanks, I guess, but that's not very useful."

Allura sighs and lets go finally. Pidge drops her hands into her lap.

"Are you... still remembering things? Like, are you seeing things that are happening right now?" Pidge asks after a moment.

Allura tilts her head thoughtfully. She opens her mouth as if to answer but her eyes unfocus, caught inward in some memory, presumably.

"Allura," Pidge reminds her and she starts.

"Yes," she says uncertainly.

"Okay. If we figure out how to make it stop, you might still remember everything you know now."

Allura blinks.

"Meaning you could still help. Without spacing out every two seconds."

She gets a glare for that.

" _And_ ," Pidge adds, "if we can figure out how to undo it, I guess we can probably make it happen again. If you're somehow determined to subject yourself to this again."

At that, Allura grabs her hands again. "It's important," she says.

"Sure," Pidge says. "I'm gonna be right back."

"Okay." Allura lets go and lies back. Pidge climbs off the bed and slips out the door, mental gears turning rapidly. They went to an alternate reality themselves, thanks to Voltron—and Lotor’s ship is from the meteor they found there, so...

"Well?" Coran asks.

"I know what's happening, and I think I know what caused it." At least, vaguely. "I have some ideas about how we can fix it, but I'm gonna need your help."

"Of course!" Coran jumps to stand at attention. "Anything."

"And Hunk, we're gonna need Hunk."

“I take it you figured out what happened, then?"

"Yeah. The blast from Lotor's ship somehow gave her access to the memories of her alternate selves," Pidge says, starting off down the hall. Coran keeps up easily. "I'm guessing that's not what it was _supposed_ to do, but since our lions are made of the same stuff as his ship, that probably blocked the worst of it. Like that portal thing we went through a while back."

"And you think the lions can reverse the process."

Pidge glances up at him. "Don't you?"

Coran beams and ruffles her hair, and she yelps and swats him away. "Very clever, number five!"

* * *

It's not easy to reverse engineer a weapon from its unintended effects, let alone find a way to undo them, but with the three of them combined and no small amount of help from the lions (and some well-intentioned but basically useless advice from the other half of the team) they have a... prototype by the end of the day. They're reasonably sure it won't _hurt_ her at least, but whether it will help is anyone's guess.

All three of them had checked in periodically with Allura as the day progressed, so when they all show up together she sits up with interest.

"Is it done?" she asks.

"We'll need you to come down to the hangar," Pidge says, gesturing to the hover chair they brought. "A lion needs to be there for this, and we can't exactly bring any of them up to you."

Allura nods and lets Hunk and Coran help her to the chair. She settles heavily into it and they lead her slowly down to the hangar; she starts a little when they stop before the green lion, as though she hadn't realized they'd already arrived (which she probably hadn't).

"Are you ready?" Hunk asks, and Allura nods.

They place the device, a repurposed headset, on her head. Then they flip the switch.

Allura stiffens for a moment, then relaxes in the chair, blinking quickly. Hunk flips the device off and hurries to take it off her while Pidge steps up in front of her.

"How do you feel?" she asks.

"Better," Allura says, and they all release a collective breath. "The memories have stopped."

"And the old ones are still there?"

"Yes." She rubs her forehead, suddenly looking years older. "I think I will need some time to... process what I've seen. Perhaps we can regroup tomorrow?"

"Of course, Princess," Coran says quickly. "Come, let's get you back to your room."

They leave, and Hunk trails after them. Pidge stays alone in the hangar, looking at the device.

Allura _had_ wanted to be able to access memories from other realities again, if needed...

She gets to work.

* * *

The thing is, Pidge is sleep-deprived. And Allura is asleep and still recovering, anyway. So it seems perfectly logical right now—at the castle's equivalent to 5 am or so—for Pidge to test the new device setting on herself.

This, she realizes about two seconds in, was a mistake.

She reverses the setting with shaking fingers but the memories are already there—just a dozen brief moments. Vignettes. In some she's here with the rest of the paladins; in some, she's in battle, fighting for her life. In one, she’s curled up in bed with Allura, which maybe explains her actions this morning.

In some, she's back on Earth with her family, together. Happy.

She's going to blame this on the sleep deprivation later, but for now, she shrugs off the device and lets herself slide to the ground and sob.

Somewhere in another reality, they're all safe, and none of this ever happened. But in this reality, Dad and Matt are still missing, and Mom is still back on Earth, and Pidge is still here in space, alone.

No memories of other possibilities can change that.

It's a wonder, Pidge realizes distantly, that Allura didn't break down entirely when she's missing so much more.

This thought gets her off the ground, eventually, and sends her wandering blearily towards the living quarters. She intends to go to her own bed, but her feet take her to Allura's room instead and she pauses outside the door before knocking lightly.

There's no response, but the door slides open, so Pidge creeps in. Then Allura stirs and she freezes.

"Pidge?" Allura murmurs groggily.

"Sorry!" Pidge whispers. "I didn't mean to wake you." _God,_  she doesn't even know why she's here. She fidgets. "Um. I modified the device. So you can access more memories if you want."

Allura blinks.

"I... tested it on myself," Pidge adds, maybe as an explanation. Allura sits up.

"Pidge..."

"I turned it off quickly, but... I saw things." She looks away. She's not sure if she's asking for comfort or looking to give it, or some other thing. "Um. Sorry, I'll let you sleep."

"Pidge," Allura says again, softer, and holds out her arms. So, hesitantly, Pidge climbs onto the bed with her and lets Allura embrace her. They lie down and Pidge worms an arm across Allura's waist and tucks her face into her neck, and it feels kinda weird but kinda right all the same.

"You're so strong," Pidge mumbles, feeling like she ought to say _something,_ and Allura shifts.

"I'm not holding you too tightly, am I?" she asks, and Pidge shakes her head quickly.

"I meant mentally. Emotionally."

Allura sighs and tucks her chin over Pidge's head. "I don't feel as such," she says quietly. "I only do what I have to."

"But you still do it."

"I suppose."

They both fall silent, but Pidge has the feeling Allura hasn't fallen back asleep just yet.

Sure enough, her arms tighten around Pidge again and her mouth moves against the crown of Pidge's head.

"The happy memories are the worst," she whispers.

"Yeah," Pidge agrees, and tightens her grip too. "Knowing what could've been."

"And what can never be," Allura adds distantly.

There's another pause.

"This isn't the worst reality though," Pidge offers finally, pulling back a bit so she can look up at Allura, who gives her the faintest of smiles.

"No," she murmurs sleepily. "I suppose it isn't."

She closes her eyes and Pidge, after a second, follows suit. They'll have a lot to discuss in the morning, but for now, she'll rest, and take this moment for what it is: a brief respite from all that could be, and all that never will.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ [maternalcube](http://maternalcube.tumblr.com/)


End file.
